“Coffee is for closers only,” he tells the salesmen he’s been brought in to consult for. “You can’t close shit, you are shit,” he yells. It’s a profanity-laden, slightly ridiculous scene, but his point is clear: if you’re not closing, you’re losing.

Many new small business owners don’t realize how vital a strong sales background is to their success. There is this feeling like, “I have a ton of great experience in my field, so of course I’ll get hired as a consultant!”

Unfortunately, that is far from the truth. Hot leads probably aren’t showing up on your doorstep. (If they are, please let me know where you live so I can also receive these deliveries.)

Our sales cycle at Dementia By Day is often pretty long.

What do I mean by “sales cycle”? When you are looking at converting a prospect into a client, you will typically take them through a sales process that begins during your first contact with them:

• Perhaps you’ve met on LinkedIn. They’ve responded affirmatively after you send them a cold message and indicate they’re interested in scheduling a call with you. In our case, we send them a link to our Calendly calendar, where they then schedule a call.

• As soon as they schedule with us, I put them into HubSpot, our client management system. After our call, I send them an email. We’ll typically exchange multiple emails—sometimes for months—before they book our initial paid program.

• After we go through that first paid step, we then offer them our six or twelve-month consulting program. Most of our clients stay on with us beyond that first engagement, but the process of converting them from prospect to client has, at times, taken up to two years.

A few years ago, in an attempt to save myself from having to be the only person “selling” for Dementia By Day, I hired an outside sales team.

I was paired with a wonderful salesperson, but despite her background and hard work, she never made a sale. As it turns out, my potential clients wanted to talk to me. All I’d done was manage to shell out $2,500 a month (for a year and a half!) as a sort of social experiment.

I’ve made thousands of cold calls. I’ve sent out thousands of cold emails and LinkedIn DMs. I’ve experimented with just about every way to get business online (and off.)

Already feeling sweaty and exhausted thinking about going back to prospecting? Learn from my mistakes (and successes) in my private podcast, Crush The Close.

What you’ll get in Crush The Close:

• 8 episodes of my secret podcast (this means you can listen to these eight episodes on your favorite podcast player, but you won’t find them floating around the podcast sphere for just anyone to find!)

• My ghost-busting follow-up email templates that have a wildly-high response rate (lost a prospect into the void? Try these.)

• My objection list (what I wrote down to remind myself of how to respond to prospects before I knew what to say off-the-cuff!)

+ Early birds (purchase through 4/17) you’ll receive a 1:1 call with me!

LEARN MORE & CRUSH THE CLOSE

Maybe you’ve been working as a consultant for a bit, but haven’t quite landed on how to package and present your offers?

Perhaps the thought of making a follow-up call to that prospect makes you want to lay down and take a nap, instead?

I’ve got you covered.

Hey, I’m Rachael, and I’ve been in the B2B market since 2015 as a dementia consultant. My field isn’t normally B2B, either, which means I had to build my entire sales playbook from scratch.

I had a secret advantage, though: I come from a pretty serious sales background.

I’ve sold all sorts of things (paper, medical supplies, paperclips meant to resemble people—more on that later) and even cars. Yes, cars. I worked full-time at a dealership selling new and preowned vehicles when I was 22 years old.

I also do my homework, and I spent years researching and developing the best approach to sales in the B2B world.

Here’s the good news: I’m sharing my playbook with you.

In my secret podcast, Crush The Close, you’ll learn how to craft your offer, find your audience, pitch them, follow up, and close the deal.

I’ll even give you my official “Objection Book,” a whole writeup of what-to-say-when-the-prospect-says-X and my favorite ghost-busting follow-up email templates for you to copy-paste and adapt.

EARLY BIRDS ALSO RECEIVE A 20-MINUTE, 1:1 CALL WITH ME! TELL ME ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS AND RECEIVE FEEDBACK LIVE ON THE CALL. (Available through 4/17)

Available now for pre-order, first episodes drop by 4/24/26! You can schedule your call and will receive your email templates and objection book before that.

SIGN UP FOR $49

What you’ll get:

• 8 episodes of my secret podcast (this means you can listen to these eight episodes on your favorite podcast player, but you won’t find them floating around the podcast sphere for just anyone to find!)

• My ghost-busting email templates that have a wildly-high response rate (lost a prospect into the void? Try these.)

• My objection list (what I wrote down to remind myself of how to respond to prospects before I knew what to say off-the-cuff!)

+ Early birds (purchase through 4/17) you’ll receive a 1:1 call with me!

Episode list:

1. I Still Haven’t Seen a Solar-Powered Car (My background in sales and why I’m teaching this all to you)

2. Who Wants to Book a Luxury Picnic? (Finding and defining your offer)

3. Stop Working For $0 (What it sounds like—and what to say to people who expect a lot for only a little bit of cash)

4. Get Off The Hamster Wheel (How to avoid the most common B2B pitfall I see)

5. LinkedIn Ain’t What It Used To Be…But It Could Still Work (How to make LinkedIn and other outreach methods work for you in 2026)

6. “If you’re explaining, you’re losing” (Deliver your pitch + borrow my objection list)

7. As Per My Last Email (Follow-up like a genius + swipe my email templates)

8. Sweating Over the Syllabus (You made the sale…what now?)

SIGN UP FOR $49

Not convinced I can help you? Be sure you’re subscribed to The ABCs of B2Bs and get access to watch the replay of my workshop, “How I Built A 6-Figure Consulting Firm From Zero.”

I was two and a half years into running my B2B consulting business full-time and I was finally making a steady income. It wasn’t a ton, but I was doing well on my own and able to pay my bills and even add to my savings. My first book was helping me gain traction in my industry, and my publisher had pitched a second book for me to write.

Things were going slowly, but they were moving forward, and I felt the sense of possibility in the air. I was still attending networking events on a regular basis, and I’d agreed to meet two women for lunch who I’d met at one such event, who were also running their own businesses.

I was excited: It had been hard to make friends in my same situation or even find people to grab lunch with. This was pre-COVID, where just about everybody went into offices from nine to five. I’m what I call an “Extreme Extrovert,” as in, I require very little alone time (a few hours is enough each day) for me to recharge. In the very early days of working for myself, I felt especially lonely.

Subscribe now

People like me—Extreme Extroverts—thrive on conversation and being around people, so I was thrilled when I was headed to lunch with whom I was sure would be my new “entrepreneur friends.”

Lunch did not go the way I anticipated.

I quickly realized that I was in a very different space in my entrepreneurial journey than the other two women. One—who I had just the day before caught bragging online about her “business” and how “successful” it was—said candidly, “I’m at a point in my business where I need to change what I’m doing because what I’ve been doing hasn’t really been working.”

I was confused. “Don’t you have a bunch of clients right now?” I asked, thinking back to her Facebook humble-brag I had just seen, perhaps days prior.

“No, I don’t have any clients right now,” she admitted.

The other woman chimed in, her smile growing wider. “I’m in the same boat, but I know that the Universe has put me in this boat for a reason.”

The first woman beamed. “I agree! I know destiny has plans for me,” she exclaimed, “And I can feel the change coming for me and my business, to bring amazing things to people who need it.”

“It does! You’re doing such amazing work…” the second woman began to gush.

Share

I spaced out and sunk in my chair. What the hell is happening right now? The two women completely diverged from the “entrepreneurial” conversation and launched into talking about “The Universe.”

This had not been my plan. I wanted to talk about work and business with two women who projected that they were on the same level as I was.

I sat, eating my way-too-expensive salad, brainstorming an excuse to leave early.

I was conflicted because, in one way, I was proud of myself for having a real business and not some half-baked LLC I boasted about on social media, but I was also completely deflated from this lunch meeting. I had been so hopeful that these two women would bring interesting business ideas to the table. I really wanted and needed people to talk to about work as a solo entrepreneur.

In my mind, we’d all been dealing with similar challenges and growing pains, but this was based entirely off of how they’d represented themselves at the networking event and then on social media. In reality, neither of them had actual income coming in from their “businesses.”

I felt like I’d been tricked, and, to make matters worse, I had to pay for my lunch when I could’ve simply eaten at home. Wasting both time and literal cash. Maybe I was doing okay, but I wasn’t comfortably at the “$25-lunch” level yet.

I kicked myself for having been duped by their false bravado. “Hey, I just realized that I have a meeting coming up in about 30 minutes,” I said in a fake-rushed tone. “So sorry I have to leave early!”

Years have passed since that meeting, but I still frequently see both of these women posting on social media channels about their businesses.

There’s never any actual proof of what they’re doing.

Instead of doing what most normal business owners do when a contract ends—saying something like, “Hey, thanks for your business, is there a lower monthly fee that would work for you?”—this guy absolutely flipped out on my friend.

He called them names, told them their business would fail, and was generally abrasive and insulting. Upon hearing this, I said, “Uhh…pretty sure this is proof that guy only has a podcast.” After a quick Google of his team’s website, it became even clearer: a week after losing their (only?) client, they were merging with another organization. In other words, they couldn’t stay afloat without the cash my friend’s biz was funneling into this Podcast Bro’s business. And let me be clear…they were honestly paying way, way too much.

The contractor in question here has run a large (read: heavily promoted) podcast for years.

ALSO for years, I’ve been wondering why I can’t find any serious record of work he and his “company” have actually done. If you check out their site, there are a lot of glossy photos, but no real substance. Any “substance” you find is from work they’ve done with my friend’s company.

And, look, this topic isn’t even about one particular Podcast Bro. Hilariously, when I first dreamed up this headline (I’ve literally had “Does this guy only have a podcast?” in my Substack drafts for months) I had a different Podcast Bro in mind.

The Podcast Bro I had in mind had approached my company to “collaborate” AKA have me send them referrals…but I wasn’t even sure what this guy and his “business” did. I got his emails all the time, but they were only about his podcast.

The clips were professional, the sound bites were great…but what the hell was he talking about and why was he even talking? Looking at Podcast Bro 2’s site was similar to looking at Podcast Bro 1’s site: there was zero substance or any real testimonials from clients.

“This is a great company and we got great results.”

- Jim M. from California

I wish I was exaggerating about how basic and ridiculous that testimonial is, but I’m not. This is literally the type of testimonial on Podcast Bro 2’s website.

This isn’t really even about Podcast Bros alone: I know a number of Podcast Gals, as well.

The point is that it’s really easy to make yourself look successful on social media, be it a podcast, Instagram, LinkedIn or even here on Substack. It’s really easy to slap together some glossy photos or sound bites and pretend like you’re absolutely crushing it in business. It’s easy to go to a beautiful home you found on AirBnB, snap photos that reflect the life you wish you had, then post them to the Internet. Anybody can do it.

After my friend ended their contact with Podcast Bro 1, they said to me, “You know, I did always wonder why I hadn’t heard of anyone else working with his company.”

HEY do you like hearing from real business owners who want to tell you what it’s REALLY like running their businesses? Then you’ll love my live workshop! I’m hosting it on April 2nd.

Learn more here.

“How’d you land your first client?”

“How did you know what prices to charge?”

“How’d you get a book deal?”

“So…how do I do what YOU do?”

I know why people ask me these questions on a regular basis: When I first started Dementia By Day, I struggled to find anyone who did anything similar to what I wanted to do. And I’m not just talking about dementia consulting.

Just about every consultant or coach I found only worked with B2C (business-to-consumer) clients, so while their advice was generally good, it wasn’t nearly as specific as I needed.

If I did manage to find someone who worked B2B (business-to-business) it was a consultant who worked with other small agencies. There I was, just me myself and I, pitching to companies with hundreds (if not thousands) of employees.

I had to build the roadmap as I went.

As an entrepreneur, it drives me absolutely wild when I see people online bragging about their “businesses” and offering to “coach” others…all without any real honesty or proof that they’re actually successful.

I’m all about honesty and I’m all about a good story. So here’s mine.

Want to know something humbling? I once spent 30 hours a week doing procurement in my decor business.

THIRTY. HOURS.

Every week. On just the ordering. It was a drag, and I hated it. And that’s on top of everything else it took to run the business. It makes me nauseous to think about it again.

We had so many vendors, and each one had a different system: some we emailed, some we ordered online, some we had to call on the phone like it was 1998.

It felt like too much to ever hand off. Too complicated. Too messy.

And honestly I assumed no one would want to do it, and felt like passing it off was akin to asking a team member to clean the office toilets.

When my coach encouraged me to delegate ordering, I immediately said no. But he challenged me, “Are you sure? You’ve said your admin is really amazing. What if you just started with asking her to order from one category or one vendor?”

I finally agreed, it felt like a relatively harmless step. It would be a pretty low-lift to hand off, and if it made her miserable I could take it back.

I finally asked her if she’d be interested in taking on the ordering for a few of our memory care vendors.

Her response? “Sure! Actually, that would make my job easier.” (Insert me face-palming here.)

She was already tracking the incoming shipments, so taking on the ordering meant she could see both sides of the process. Taking me out of the picture actually streamlined things.

We built out a super simple Standard Operating Procedure for each vendor and a master spreadsheet:

• How we ordered

• Contact info

• Any quirks to watch for

She did so well, that I handed more and more off to her. And within a couple of months, she was doing all of the ordering. ALL of it. We would meet for about 15 minutes a week, and she would ask me a question here and there.

And just like that, I got almost 30 hours of my week back.

The best part was that she was faster than me, and WAY more accurate. I used to joke that she made close to zero mistakes (she disagrees and claims that she just caught her mistakes before I could see them-fine with me!).

All that time, I was the bottleneck and I didn’t even realize it.

Delegation can feel scary and overwhelming. But like my coach, I challenge you to try handing off just a little accessible chunk at a time. Sometimes that’s enough to prove to yourself that you can do it, that it’s possible.

Remember that delegating isn’t just about saving time. It’s about making your business more efficient, accurate, and allowing you the space to do the big things that move the needle.

If you’re still holding on to a task because you think it’s “too hard to delegate,” I promise-it’s probably costing you more than you think.

Subscribe now

“How’d you land your first client?”

“How did you know what prices to charge?”

“How’d you get a book deal?”

“So…how do I do what YOU do?”

I know why people ask me these questions on a regular basis: When I first started Dementia By Day, I struggled to find anyone who did anything similar to what I wanted to do. And I’m not just talking about dementia consulting.

Get access to the April 2nd workshop below.

Just about every consultant or coach I found only worked with B2C (business-to-consumer) clients, so while their advice was generally good, it wasn’t nearly as specific as I needed.

If I did manage to find someone who worked B2B (business-to-business) it was a consultant who worked with other small agencies. There I was, just me myself and I, pitching to companies with hundreds (if not thousands) of employees.

I had to build the roadmap as I went.

As an entrepreneur, it drives me absolutely wild when I see people online bragging about their “businesses” and offering to “coach” others…all without any real honesty or proof that they’re actually successful.

I’m all about honesty and I’m all about a good story. So here’s mine.

If you’re able to attend live, you’ll get a lot more out of it: I’m opening up the floor to questions and you can get as specific as you want.

Have a business idea, but you’re not sure if it could work? Ask me.

Need to know what to price something? Ask me.

Dealing with a client who doesn’t pay you on time? Ask me about it.

Here’s one of my new favorites:

Hi Rachael,

I am Abigail from [company name] a renowned publication that reaches over 113,000 qualified subscribers. We aim to empower elder citizens and their families with the knowledge and resources needed for informed care decisions and dignified aging.

We are thrilled to share that Dementia By Day is shortlisted as the 'Top Dementia Care Consulting Services 2026' in our upcoming edition. It is based on nominations from our subscribers and a thorough evaluation by our selection panel of senior executives and our editorial team. This speaks volumes about your excellence and the credibility of your expertise.

Notably, you are the sole recipient of the 'Top Dementia Care Consulting Services 2026' title in this edition. As a part of this, we want to highlight how your organization stands out from others by featuring an engaging profile.

This recognition will position Dementia By Day as a trusted name in elder care, serving as a robust validation for those seeking reliable and compassionate care services.

Along with this feature, we will provide the Logo and other benefits for $3000.

Furthermore, your company's profile will be linked to your website, allowing prospects to reach you directly.

Rachael, we'd be delighted to schedule a conversation between you and our senior manager to discuss the details of this recognition and how it will be presented.

Let me know your availability so we can arrange the conversation.

Regards,
Abigail

Here’s what I wrote back in my email. No, I am not exaggerating, this is literally what I typed in response:

“Let me get this straight. You want me to pay you $3,000 so you can give me some made-up award in a made-up category? Get lost with this crap.”

Leave a comment

Maybe Abigail caught me at a particularly bad time.

Or maybe I’ve just gotten far too many of these “invitations” and “opportunities” and I’m sick of it.

I think it’s the later.

I visited the company’s website to see who they’d actually suckered into this scheme. As it turns out (and maybe not surprisingly) it was a good amount of people. I sighed. Why do people do this to themselves?

I ask this, but I know the answer.

Share

These types of “opportunities” (read: schemes) prey on people at their most vulnerable. Their most hopeful. And scammers know this.

They know that small business owners who want to get ahead are looking for opportunities like these in the hopes that they’ll be the golden ticket to boost their sales.

I often wish I could meet these scammers face-to-face. I wonder if they’d have the same audacity in person.

Unfortunately, Abigail never emailed me back. Pity.

: “Working weekends.”

: “Whenever any opportunity comes along that promises quick revenue but steers us away from the main goal.”

: “I say “no” to immediate solicitation requests for a conversation.”

: “I think my main one these days is that I don’t work for free unless it is for a (non-profit) cause that I really care about. That I would donate money to, because that is essentially what it is. And I don’t negotiate my hourly consultation or training/development rate. Early in my career, I said “yes” to everything to gain experience, exposure, and networking contacts. It was definitely worth it. But no more. I’ve earned the promotion!”

: “Love a thoughtful no! I try to say no to anything that costs me more energy than I’d get back from it.”

: “No calls without an agenda. No timelines that only work if I overextend.”

: “Anything that’s not a ‘hell yes!’ 😊”

: “I say ‘no’ a lot more than I say ‘yes.’ I like the word ‘no.’”

Which “no” is your favorite?

Leave a comment

Here’s what I say “no” to:

We’d love to invite you as a featured guest influencer to:

• Promote the event with your following

• Share your experience with your audience before, during, and after our conference

• Connect with other industry leaders and creators

In return, we’re happy to offer you an opportunity to attend our event with an earned complimentary registration to make your experience memorable and worthwhile. If this sounds exciting, I’d be happy to share more details and discuss how we can make this collaboration a win-win.

I’ve gotta tell you…that does not “sound exciting” to me.

And, honestly?

This “invitation” is actually pretty insulting.

Why insulting, you ask?

What they’re pitching is multi-fold:

• Buy your own airfare and hotel stay to attend our conference (Too bad if you’re far away!)

• Tell other people about our conference and maybe earn a “complimentary registration” (How do they decide if you’ve earned it?)

• “Share your experience” before, during and after the conference, AKA post about it (unpaid, of course) to your audience.

Not to mention, they didn’t even write my actual name on this email. Simply, “Hello Influencer!”

What they’re getting out of this deal:

• Attendees who will bring in more (paid) attendees

• Coverage on social media without paying for ads or a Social Media Coordinator

• Zero worry about covering travel fees for “influencers”

This isn’t a collaboration—it’s a scheme.

When you’re new to business, it can be tempting to jump at “opportunities” like this one that come across your desk.

Do yourself a favor and pause before accepting a gig like this one.

Together, we unpack the rise and fallout of Jodi Hildebrandt’s coaching empire, her influence over Ruby Franke, and how coercive control, made-up certifications, and “train-the-trainer” coaching models created a high-control group that resulted in real harm.

Dr. Hanks also explains how mental health terminology like trauma, truth, distortion, and healing was weaponized, why the lack of coaching regulation matters, and how vulnerable people are targeted through shame, urgency, and spiritual authority.

I pulled together a bare-bones Shopify website. My office was a couple of Ikea tables set up in the back bedroom of our house. One of my dear friends made my first logo. I had our family lawyer draft a simple contract. I got the smallest amount of business insurance coverage possible.

I couldn’t get a business loan if I begged. We had hurried up and bought a (very basic) house while we still had two W2 incomes in our household. My husband was still working his corporate job, but it would just cover our expenses - nothing extra.

In my case, I had no choice but to keep things minimal.

As I got paid on orders, I bought more inventory. I reinvested slowly. Carefully. Intentionally.

Only when I had taken over two bedrooms and the basement - and was pulling in multiple six figures in revenue (which, reminder, does not equal profit or income) - did I get a well-priced office space off Craigslist.

And it was only then that I finally invested in basic branding and a proper website. That’s also when I hired my first official employee, not before.

Why am I telling you all of this?

Because I see the pressure on new business owners to set up more than they need right from the start. Before that first client has even paid you, you’re pushed to peel off $10k to do photo shoots/get a brand book/implement an ERP system that’s far more than you actually require.

You probably don’t need an employee or a VA until you are genuinely overwhelmed. You probably don’t need a complex tech stack. You probably don’t need the “perfect” brand.

My only caveat to this is protecting yourself: talk to a lawyer, a business insurance agent, and a CPA right off the bat to make sure you are setting things up properly and legally.

I’m all for professionalism. I’m all for efficiency.

But please hear this: it doesn’t matter what it looks like from the outside if you’re not making enough money to keep going.

I understand the urge to have everything set and ready so you can just run the business. There’s a sense of safety in structure. A feeling of legitimacy in polish.

But what if the money doesn’t flow in as quickly as you hope?
What if the economy shifts?
What if you get sick?

Now you’ve killed your cash flow, drained your savings, and maybe even gone into debt - all before proving the model.

I was in a mastermind group back in 2019, and one of the women in my cohort was making multiple seven figures in revenue - and hella profit.

Then she told us she didn’t have a website.

Um, what?

HER MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR BUSINESS DIDN’T HAVE A WEBSITE.

She created an incredible service that people wanted. She grew organically through word of mouth over a few years. She invested her money into operations and delivery, and financially it worked.

Build the thing people want.
Serve them well.
Get paid.

Then refine.
Then optimize.
Then scale.

It may not look glamorous to build slowly. But it’s often the smartest move in the room.

I took a deep breath and leaned back in my desk chair.

Maybe I’ve become a curmudgeon, a part of me thought. Maybe I should be nice and let him schedule that call. Perhaps this call could turn into something.

No! No, you know what happens when you let someone schedule with you for one of these sessions, the other part of my brain argued. You get annoyed with the caller and then get annoyed with yourself for allowing them to schedule the call.

When I first started in my business, I spent (read: wasted) tons of time having “quick chats” with people. Just about anyone who inquired would get me on the phone or over Zoom.

I quickly discovered that this was the fastest road to burnout I could’ve possibly taken.

Plus, I discovered, it never ended up being a “quick chat.”

I found that, in reality, the call would be at least 20 minutes of them asking me how I got started (which they could find on my website) and how they can “help” me (see my article about my feelings on referral relationships) in my business.

I often felt, in those early days, like I “had” to have these calls.

I always thought, “I’ll miss out on an opportunity of some kind if I don’t take the call!”

I also spent a ton of time attending “networking events” in my local area, thinking that these would be the way to make connections that would lead to business.

These, too, were a dead-end: They were simply marketing events full of salespeople from different organizations who were being paid their regular salaries to go eat breakfast or lunch in a big room with other salespeople. I, on the other hand, was not being paid to be there.

If you run a business, you need to pay attention to what drains your energy vs. what excites you.

Despite the fact that I’m a big extrovert who loves talking to people, I finally started to realize that “quick coffee chats” and attending networking events was a massive drain on my energy stores.

If I was going to get anything real accomplished in my company, I’d need to start saying “no” a lot more frequently.

Eventually, I learned to trust my gut instinct—something I rely on heavily now to tell me if a call or meeting is worth taking.

If my gut says that the call might be worth it, I’ll send over my calendar.

If my gut says my time could be spent better elsewhere, I’m skipping the meeting.

“Hi, thank you for the offer to catch up, but we’re busy with client work and reserve calls for potential or current clients. If you’d like to learn more about what we do, here’s my website link,” I replied to the email.

Protect your time and energy. Reserve it for the work you need (or want) to do.

“90 Day” is based on the concept of the K1 Visa: once an American files the K1 Visa (known as the “fiancé Visa”) they have 90 days to get married, starting the day their partner touches down in the US.

Share The ABCs of B2Bs

In case you’re thinking, “Okay, but how much of one show could someone possibly watch?,” I will share that “The 90 Day Universe” includes, but is not limited to, the following shows:

• 90 Day Fiancé - the original show

• 90 Day Fiancé: The Other Way - where the American goes to their partner’s country

• 90 Day Fiancé: Before The 90 Days - before the K1 Visa is filed

• 90 Day Diaries - cast members film themselves between seasons

• 90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After? - married couples’ lives after previous seasons of 90 Day

• Pillow Talk, The Single Life, Love in Paradise…

The point is, there’s a lot of 90 Day to watch, with multiple seasons of each 90 Day spinoff available. In case you run out of seasons and episodes, you could ways pivot to 90 Day UK! (Which, yes, I have done at times.)

I realized at some point that 90 Day Fiancé has something major in common with the concept of running a business: sunk cost.

“What should I do? It’s been six years,” Allie typed back to me. “I’m exhausted and I can’t keep paying to be a vendor at events to try and get business.”

What I thought was, Six years?! Are you out of your mind? It’s time to throw in the towel, lady!

What I typed in response was, “Six years is a very long time to be battling it out with entrepreneurship. I know it’s not the advice you want to hear, but it’s the best advice I have: Pick a date when you want to pause working on your business and pivot into working for someone else. You deserve to make a good living and not be exhausted.”

We’d had a short conversation, but I had a feeling I wouldn’t be getting a reply after this latest message.

Allie didn’t want to hear this, but she needed to hear it. The whole, “Ra, ra, hustle harder!” cry of the Internet was not helping her. 

There’s a psychological theory called the “Sunk Cost Fallacy” that applies frequently in business and in love.

It usually goes something like this: Two people meet; one lives in the United States and one person lives halfway across the world. They talk for months—sometimes even years—before going to meet one another.

Leave a comment

As you may imagine, drama ensues as the couple meets for the first time. Often, at least one of the partners will say something to the effect of, “I would end this relationship, but we’ve been talking for three years and I’ve sent them thousands of dollars.”

As a viewer, this is the part where I start yelling at the TV. “No! You sent money? Never send money! Get out of there, call this thing off!”

It’s obvious to me, as the viewer, that this relationship is doomed and that partner who sent money has probably fallen into some sort of romance scam. For the person in the relationship, however, they think, Well, I’ve spent this much time and money already, I should see this thing through.

And, look, it’s not always a scam. Sometimes both parties actually care about each other, but at some point, one of the partners will often say something to the same effect: “I’ve spent seven years talking to them, I owe it to myself to keep trying.”

This, in short, is an example of the Sunk Cost Fallacy. 

With the Sunk Cost Fallacy, a person feels as though they have invested a great deal of resources in one direction and feel that, even though it is ill-advised, they should keep going in that same direction. In reality, it would be much smarter to pull out of the investment and stop throwing good money (or time) after bad, but it becomes more and more difficult for the individual in the situation to see that. The more time, energy and money they spend, the harder it becomes to see a way out.

In Allie’s situation, she had spent six years trying to make her business work. Instead of realizing that it was time to call it off, she continued to throw more energy, time and money into it.

Share

I felt sorry for Allie.

I watched her post on LinkedIn, day after day, about her services for caregivers of people living with dementia. It clearly wasn’t working for her, and she also lacked the degree and the resume to back up her “consulting” services.

I say this as someone with a Master’s degree and three published books on dementia: It’s still hard sometimes to get my foot in the door with a company. I can’t imagine how impossible it would be without my advanced degree and publishing history to help people take me seriously. 

It is also very difficult to admit failure, so most people will do anything to avoid doing so, even if it is just to themselves.

If this is you, I’d give you the same advice: Pick a date that you’re going to stop torturing yourself with trying to make this thing happen. Most people are better off working for a company and bringing home a reliable paycheck. After six years, I’d want a reliable paycheck, too.

I’d love to tell you the wild and true story of how I built my business from scratch. Intrigued? Subscribe to get the replay of my workshop, “How I Built A 6-Figure Consulting Firm From Zero.”

At 15, I knew I wanted to work with older adults, but I didn’t know how.

At 18, I started college and majored in psychology with a concentration in pre-med, thinking I’d go to medical school.

By 19, I realized that “chemistry for the science major” was going to crush me. I learned about “Gerontology” in my Psych of Aging class.

At 22, I went to grad school for my Master’s in Gerontology.

At 23, a woman I interviewed for a grad school project scoffed at my dream of “one day designing dementia care programs.” She said it wasn’t a job.

At 24, I got my first job in my field and started a blog called Dementia By Day, where I shared stories of working with my residents living with dementia.

At 26, I got laid off from my 3rd job as a Dementia Care Director.

Also at 26, my first book came out.

By 27, I was working in my own company doing exactly what I told that woman I interviewed what I wanted to do.

Now it’s 2026. I’m 37 and have had two more books published in my field. I’m still running Dementia By Day full-time.

What is The ABCs of B2Bs?

The ABCs of B2Bs is stories, lessons, advice, and everything I’ve learned the hard way while running my business-to-business dementia care consulting firm for the last decade.

You might be asking…Okay, Rachael, but why are you writing about anything other than dementia care here on Substack?

That’s the same question an agent interested in my fourth book, a business memoir, had for me.

Because, after ten-plus years of doing it, I’ve realized I’m also an expert in how to run a consulting business.

I write about, speak about, and make short Reels and movies about dementia care all day, every day. I love working in dementia care.

But I’m also really passionate about small business—and that’s where this Substack publication comes in.

• The 11 Business Lessons I Learned The Hard Way

• Is Everyone Making 7 Figures Without Me?

• “Aren’t you so happy?” Preeclampsia, PTSD and My Attempt to Keep Business As Usual

And, when I started my business, it was incredibly hard to find anyone talking about a small, service-based consulting business who worked with much larger businesses. I’d love to help people who are in the same boat.

If you’re interested in hearing about entrepreneurship, growing a consulting firm, complaining about coaching-coaches-to-coach culture, or just generally enjoy my humorous take on business…please consider subscribing (it’s free!)

People tend to think my entire day is made up of educating people about dementia. While that is certainly at least 40% of my day (most days) the rest of the time is spent working on/in the business I built.

This misunderstanding is also probably why I encountered a challenge early into looking for a publisher for my book.

I already have three books published with Johns Hopkins University Press.

All three books are about dementia. When someone asks if I’m writing another dementia care book, I’ll often say, “No, my trilogy is complete!”

I love talking about dementia care, but I also love talking about business.

Subscribe now

Because I have such a niche, however, I’ve found that my work has often been “pigeon-holed” to where I feel I’m only allowed to talk about dementia care.

That’s why I decided I wanted to finally start working on a fourth book. This one, though, was to be a business memoir: somewhere I could finally share all of my stories about running my small, B2B, service-based consulting agency. (Wow, what a mouthful.)

As I wrote, I also began looking for book agents to represent me.

Much to my excitement, one agent responded only a few days after receiving my proposal. “I’ve been waiting for someone to write a book like this!” she told me.

Our first call went great. I was thrilled: maybe she was “the one” for me and would help this project get to the right publisher. She seemed to understand what it was that I wanted to accomplish with the book.

“I just need to talk with my boss,” she told me, “but I think he’ll be on-board. You already have three published books, so that really helps!”

A couple of weeks later, she requested a second call.

“Hey Rachael,” she said, “My boss wasn’t sure about your ability to get this book to publishers. He feels like, since you’re an expert in dementia, why not write another book about dementia instead of this one?”

My heart sank.

“I already have three books on dementia,” I said weakly. “I don’t want to write another one, and honestly, I don’t have another dementia care book in me. I want to write a business memoir.”

Was she really bailing on this idea after one conversation with her boss?

“Sure, but you could make this one funny!” she exclaimed. “My boss had this great idea about making it a funny book about dementia. I know you want to write a comical book, and this could be it.”

I felt as though the wind had been knocked out of me.

“…a funny book…about dementia?” I tried to control my voice. “Dementia isn’t funny. It’s a group of brain diseases.”

I knew that this agent and her boss knew nothing about dementia, but did they really not see how this suggestion was completely insensitive?

“I have a client who was terminally ill and she wrote a funny book about being terminally ill,” the agent went on. “You could call it, ’Coping With People Who Are Losing Their Minds’ or something.”

I moved from frustrated to enraged: this was a terrible idea for a book and her idea for a title was even worse than the idea itself.

Subscribe now

I tried to keep my voice level and did my best to compose myself, because I knew that her suggestions were not born of meanness, but of pure ignorance about dementia.

“Okay, but I don’t have dementia,” I sighed. “There would be literally no way to write that book without punching down. It would come off as really condescending and mean,” I explained. “I have zero desire to write that book. Also, people living with dementia aren’t ‘losing their minds,’ they’re losing some of the gains they’ve made in their lives due to a group of brain diseases.”

I knew I was shouting into the wind at this point, but I couldn’t stop myself from trying to explain why and how her “suggestion” was so awful.

“Oh, okay,” the agent seemed to shrug, ignoring the ton of bricks that she’d just dropped on my chest.

“The challenge we’re having is that you are an expert in dementia, not business,” she continued.

“But I’ve been running a business since 2014,” I started. “It just happens to be in the niche of dementia care. I am certainly an expert at running a small consulting business.”

“Yes, but you’ve never been a business coach,” she explained.

Is she really not understanding what I’m saying? I thought. I really believed that we were on the same page during that first call, but I guess I was wrong.

“That’s kind of the whole thing I’m talking about in the book, though,” I countered. “I don’t want people to randomly become coaches to coach other coaches. Consulting consultants to consult consultants on consulting.”

I don’t remember what else we talked about after that. My brain was loud and my hands were shaking from adrenaline. I felt utterly defeated and frustrated: she just didn’t understand what I was trying to do.

Leave a comment

The major thesis of my book is, “Think twice before starting your own business.”

The agent was essentially telling me that because I didn’t have a business about having a business, I was not an “expert” in business ownership.

Did she really not grasp the irony?

It sounded like she and her boss only believed that people who were coaching or consulting on “business” to be “business experts.” Did running a successful business for over a decade not make me enough of an expert? Yes, I am an expert in dementia, but I know more than just dementia care.

When you’re the owner of a small business, there is so much you have to know and do and plan ahead for that has literally nothing to do with your niche.

But it’s hard to explain that to someone outside of the entrepreneurial world.

“I want to do what you do, Rachael! It’s so cool that you work for yourself. How do I get started?”

I receive messages like this on a regular basis.

It’s—at least in part—what inspired me to start this Substack and write my fourth book. Unfortunately, most of the people who write me messages like this one have no idea what I actually do all day. They see me being my own boss and think, “Damn, how do I get out of the corporate grind and do my own thing, too? Time freedom, baby!”

What they don’t realize, of course, is that true self-employment is much like becoming the corporate grind. You aren’t taking yourself out of the rat race: you’re building your own unique mousetrap. And, if you don’t add people and processes to assist you with the day-to-day, you’re going to be the one trapped.

I love what I do for a living. I also love talking about business.

Here’s to building your own path, even when not everyone understands where you’re going.

Listen online or anywhere you get your podcasts: https://sites.libsyn.com/564365

In this episode, hosts Rachael Wonderlin and Natalie De Paz welcome back returning guest Anna Failla for a candid follow-up on her time inside Devil Corp, and more importantly, the fallout after she left.

Anna previously shared how she was recruited into what’s widely referred to online as “Devil Corp,” a shadowy, pyramid-shaped sales ecosystem operating through rotating LLCs. This conversation picks up where that story left off, with the financial and psychological ripple effects, as well as what happened to the people who stayed behind.

Together, they unpack how cult-like work environments isolate young employees, glamorize hustle, blur ethical lines, and make leaving feel like failure. Anna reflects on the long road to untangling identity, trust, and ambition, including how vulnerability, therapy, and community helped her rebuild.

Key Takeaways:

– Leaving is only the beginning. The hardest part of Devil Corp was emotionally unpacking the experience years later.

– Pyramid-shaped systems thrive on isolation. Multiple LLCs, siloed teams, and constant “leadership” check-ins prevented employees from comparing notes.
–Shame keeps people quiet. Many former colleagues declined to speak publicly, not because the experience wasn’t harmful, but because it was embarrassing.

– Stability isn’t failure. Choosing a 9-to-5, lateral career moves, or creative fulfillment over constant hustle can be an act of healing.
– Not all takeaways are clean or simple. Anna learned real sales and business skills, even while experiencing deep manipulation and burnout.

Memorable Quotes:

“The business became my religion, my friend group, my whole world — and I didn’t see it until I saw it.”

“They sell you the idea, not the job, because if they told you the job, you wouldn’t take it.”

“There’s this unspoken rule that leaving hustle culture feels like betrayal.”

“Collecting skill sets instead of titles changed everything for me.”

“Stability gets framed as failure — and that’s part of the manipulation.”

About the Guest:

Anna Failla is a Pittsburgh-based creative professional and a returning guest on I Can’t Hustle Any Harder Than This. She previously shared her firsthand experience working inside Devil Corp, a controversial, cult-like sales organization often discussed on Reddit and YouTube. Today, she prioritizes stability, creativity, and family life, while openly sharing her story to help others recognize red flags in predatory work environments.

New goals.
New habits.
New routines.
New you!

There’s an unspoken pressure to come out of the gate sprinting. As if January is some kind of starting gun and if you don’t move fast enough, you’ll fall behind.

But it’s all bullshit.

Subscribe now

January is winter. And winter is anything but a season of pushing.

In nature, winter is when things rest. Hibernate. When energy is conserved, not expended.

We live in a culture that treats rest like a reward you earn after you’ve checked off everything on your list and exhausted yourself. But biologically - and honestly, emotionally - that’s backwards.

And especially right now with the state of the world, the constant noise, the low-grade anxiety so many of us are carrying, it makes even less sense to demand peak performance from ourselves.

If you’re feeling tired, unmotivated, or resistant to “pushing” right now, there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re responding appropriately to the season you’re in.

One of the most helpful reframes I’ve adopted is this:

January isn’t for pushing, it’s for incubating.

It’s a chance to gently ask:

• What actually drained me last year?

• What sustained me?

• What do I want more of - not just professionally, but in my body and my life?

• What am I ready to leave behind?

You don’t need to answer all of that immediately. You just need to listen. There will be a time to go all in. Spring is excellent for that - it has momentum, energy, and is when things naturally want to break through the surface.

But winter asks for patience, softness. For tending to your internal world so you’re not dragging exhaustion into the next season.

So if you’re not feeling the urge to hustle this January, let that be okay. It’s not falling behind or being lazy. And choosing not to push right now might be the most aligned decision you make all year.

Get cozy on the sofa with a good book and cup of tea. Luxuriate in a warm bubble bath. You’re allowed to take a beat, nature already has.

You see the Coaching Coaches to Coach (CC2Cs) and the Biocoin Bros all over Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. They show up a little bit on LinkedIn. They’re definitely on YouTube.

And I don’t know about you, but they’re certainly in my email inbox and my DMs.

Now they’re coming for Substack. You’ve been warned.

They write posts that say things like, “I made $100k in only 3 months after I decided to [insert nonsense here] and I can show you how to, too!”

They use phrases like:

• “Alignment and abundance”

• “Soul-centered leadership” and “Heart-centered leaders”

• “Scaling quietly” and “Launching with ease”

• “Work from anywhere”

• “Sustainable, passive income!”

  Subscribe now

If someone’s entire business model is built on having a business about having a business...

That’s not actually a business.

Now, there ARE 100% real coaches out there. I’ve met them. I’ve interviewed them for my podcast.

is the real deal, as an example. I’ve linked her episode on my podcast, “I Can’t Hustle Any Harder Than This” here or you can listen anywhere you get your podcasts.

Here’s what differentiates a real coach from a CC2C:

• A real coach has done the thing many times. In Anna’s case, she’s owned multiple businesses and seen all the ups and downs. She’s lived it.

• A real coach isn’t selling you on crap they can’t deliver on. “You’ll 10x your business by working with me” is nonsense.

• When you look at a real coach’s website you know what they do. It’s clear. It’s not, “literally any business” but, “I work with this exact type of person.”

The CC2Cs and Bitcoin Bros have maybe done the thing they’re pitching you successfully once. Maybe.

I guarantee the people who slide into my inbox on a near-daily basis to pitch me on “YouTube SEO” or “Podcast growth” services have literally never done the thing they’re pitching me.

Mostly, their entire business model is convincing you that they’re rich and successful, and you could be, too, if only you gave them your money. Bonus points if you’re a coach for other coaches, so you can just keep adapting their pyramid-shaped business model for yourself.

Years ago, I’d partnered with a sales team to assist me in growing my business.

After about a year and half of working with them, I decided to part ways. In an attempt to keep me on their books, they offered to bring in a “business coach” to talk with me.

Subscribe now

I knew it was a last-ditch effort to keep me as a client. I liked the sales team and even though working with them wasn’t turning over new business, I humored this “business coach meeting” out of respect.

“What kind of business does she consult on?” I asked. “You said she’s a business coach...for what kind of business?”

They didn’t have much of an answer. “She’s done a lot of work in a variety of industries,” they said. “She also worked with a Parkinson’s disease group, so similar to what you are doing.”

This disappointed me. “Uh, okay, but there are over 100 causes of dementia and Parkinson’s is potentially one of those causes...I don’t think there’s a lot of overlap, but…alright.”

Just about the moment I got on my video call with her, I knew it was going to be a disaster. I was doing everything I could to hold back my irritation.

“So, tell me about your business.” The woman smiled broadly on our first video call. “Who do you work with?”

I was floored: Had she done literally zero homework on me? There was a video on my homepage explaining exactly what I did and who I worked with. The video starts playing when you go to my website—you can’t miss it, even if you tried.

I bit my tongue and told her what I did and who I worked with.

“So how did you get into this business? Did you have a loved one with dementia and Alzheimer’s?”

This made me mad for two reasons: one, it confirmed she hadn’t done any research on me at all, and two, Alzheimer’s is the most common cause of dementia, so saying “dementia and Alzheimer’s” is akin to saying “cancer and skin cancer.” I normally wouldn’t be irritated by this common mistake, but she’d spent nearly ten minutes bragging about “her work in the field” by this point.

What field? You volunteered for a Parkinson’s fundraiser. Give me a break.

After wasting a solid twenty minutes explaining who I was and what I did—all things that could’ve been done well before we spoke—she announced her grand idea for growing my business.

“Grants!” she said, smiling broadly and clasping her hands. “That’s how you can expand your business! You can help companies apply for grants and then work with them once they get the grant.”

“So, just to make sure I understand you,” I started. “You want me to work with companies who have no money, spend time researching and helping them write grants, hoping they get the grant, and then hoping they hire me with that grant money. Is that accurate?”

Share

“Well, yes,” she went on. “I just saw a Parkinson’s grant—”

What was this woman’s deal with Parkinson’s? I wondered. Is this her only talking point?

“—that would be $20k!”

“My smallest program is twenty-five thousand,” I sighed. “Five thousand more than that grant would even cover.”

For some reason, she continued to push her agenda.

I shook my head. “I don’t write grants. I took a grant writing class in grad school and that is literally my whole grant-writing experience. It’s a real job that requires a particular set of skills. Not just anybody can write a grant.”

The call went on a while longer, and eventually ended with a “plan to follow up.”

We had our next call a week later, and it went even worse than the first meeting.

The “business coach” got on Zoom with me and the senior living company to whom she wanted me to pitch.

I knew immediately it was a dead-end:

• They had a non-dementia-related grant they wanted

• They had no idea who I was

• The “coach” hadn’t briefed them on her plans or on my background

“So, what do you do?” the lead on the call asked.

The painful, awkward call ended about twenty minutes too long, and it was only a twenty minute call.

I emailed the sales team. They apologized on her behalf for her lack of preparation.

It was one of many examples of someone calling themselves a “business coach” or “business consultant” with zero chops to back it up. She had no real experience in business or in my field.

And, despite the fact that she didn’t look at my website, I’d certainly looked at hers. Her site was ridiculously vague; full of misplaced historical quotes, random stock imagery, and a suspicious lack of a resume or list of previous clients.

I’d seen this site before. Well, not that exact site, but many sites like it: sites thrown up onto the Web in an attempt to “start a business.”

What business, you ask? A consulting business. A business to consult for other business consultants. Coaching coaches to coach other coaches to make money from people they’re coaching about coaching.

The thing that astounds me is how clearly full of shit these people are, and yet they almost seem to be buying their own nonsense.

The other problem with these types of grifters making their businesses look profitable online is that people who are new to business may think they’re the problem.

They might think, I’m not doing well enough, so I should pivot. I should hire a coach. I should change my website.

That’s where the CC2Cs get you: they exploit your fear and anxiety about business growth.

They charge you thousands and suck you into group “Masterminds” where they can coach a bunch of different people about their completely unique businesses.

And guess what? They’re on the way here. To Substack.

Don’t get fooled.

“Rachael, noooo,” Natalie pleaded quietly as my Zoom screen popped up.

Nat had gotten very good at using this voice that said-without-saying, I know you’re going to do whatever you want to do, but please reconsider.

I laughed and addressed my team. “Guys, I’m fine,” I smiled, holding up my left arm which was attached to a blood pressure cuff.

I was definitely not fine.

“Let’s just have this meeting,” I said. “We’ve already rescheduled it once and my maternity leave is coming up in a couple of weeks. Besides, I’ll be out of here in like an hour, might as well do something productive while I wait.”

I was definitely not going to be out of there in an hour.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Emily asked. “Yeah, I am sure we could reschedule this for a better time,” Audra added. “You should rest, you’re literally in the hospital right now for high blood pressure.”

I reassured my team that it was time to get down to business and have this maternity leave planning meeting. Sure, I had gestational hypertension, but this was my second hospital visit and about my millionth blood draw and blood pressure check by this point, so I felt confident that my doctor’s plan was still in effect: they would induce me a little early at 37 weeks.

The morning had started like many other mornings in my third trimester. I was 34 weeks pregnant and dealing with gestational hypertension—high blood pressure—so my doctor ensured I was seen weekly at her office and had weekly labs. Although this hypertension was frustrating to me as someone who had always been healthy and exercised 6-7 days a week, my doctor reassured me that this “just happened” to some women.

My mom came with me to my checkup and they ran through the usual procedure: they collected my urine, they weighed me, they listened to the baby’s heartbeat and then put me on the blood pressure monitor.

The nurse came in. “Hey, your BP is 150/90,” she said, calmly. “You know what you gotta do,” she gave me a small smile.

I sighed. “Yeah, yeah. Hospital?”

“You got it,” she said, closing the door. “We’ll keep an eye out for your discharge paperwork.”

“Alright,” I turned to my mom. “Annoying, but last time I was only there for an hour. Let’s get a quick snack and then go. We can eat our leftovers for lunch when we get back home.”

We made the 30-minute trek to the hospital and were taken back quickly, as all soon-to-be-moms are. “Wonderlin?” The woman at the counter asked when I approached. “Wow, how did you know?” I asked, mystified. “Your doctor’s office called ahead and said to expect you,” she explained. “Here’s your wristband. Head on back.”

I remember feeling oddly calm. I had been upset that I was going to be induced at 37 weeks, but I’d gotten used to the idea by then. Besides, I was only 34 weeks: we had a plan for 37 weeks and I always took comfort in a plan.

They took me back and set me up in a triage maternity room. My mom sat on the chair beside my bed and we both fiddled with our phones and talked about what we’d do when we got back to my house.

The blood pressure cuff was annoying to me as usual. Every few minutes it would sound, beep, beep, beep! The cuff would tighten around my wrist: beep, beep, beep. The cuff would reach maximum tightness, hold for a moment, and then suddenly release. Beep, beep, beep. I did my best to breathe regularly while it measured my blood pressure, but it was difficult with all the beeping.

I took my maternity leave call and my team of contractors and I reviewed our plans. I felt fortunate to have pulled together a small group of people who knew what they were doing.

“Your team seems really great,” my mom offered when I got off the call. “They seem like they really care about you and your business.”

I smiled in response.

Side note: my mom now also works for Dementia By Day.

Leave a comment

The door opened and a young female doctor came in. “Hi,” she said, somberly, and introduced herself. “So, we have a bit of an issue.”

My heart dropped—just not my blood pressure.

“I’ve been watching your pressures from outside the room,” she explained. “Your blood pressure has been hanging out around 160/95,” she looked at my mom and then back at me. “I was waiting for it to come back down, but it hasn’t. This is dangerous for you and for your baby. We’re going to have to move forward with delivery.”

We’re going to move forward with delivery. The words shocked me. “What!” I practically yelled. “Delivery! When? Like, now? I’m supposed to be induced at 37 weeks!”

“And,” she paused and glanced at the screen to my left, “Since I’ve been in here, it just hit 170/100.”

“Well, that’s because I’m upset!” I cried, tears now streaming down my face.

“I know,” she explained, slowing her voice down and quieting slightly. “But this is dangerous. With these pressures, you could have a heart attack or a stroke. You have pre-eclampsia.”

“But my labs never showed pre-eclampsia,” I pressed. “My labs have always been clean!”

I don’t know why I was trying to plead my case to the physician, or what that case even was. I just wanted to go home, eat lunch, and have a normal, pregnant Monday.

“There comes a point where your pressures show pre-eclampsia before the labs do,” she said. “We have to get you to a delivery room.”

A delivery room. No, no, this wasn’t the plan.

I walked, in my hospital gown, crying, to the delivery room. The nurses—who would become my companions throughout my six-day stay at the hospital—were very kind and thoughtful. “We heard you were coming up and we saved you a big room,” a blonde nurse about my age smiled at me. They did indeed save me a beautiful room, but I did not get to enjoy it for long. “Go ahead and climb up on the bed there.”

“We’re going to start you on a magnesium drip,” the attending physician explained. “This is to prevent you from having a stroke or a heart attack due to your high blood pressure,” she said.

This sounded reasonable enough.

“Okay,” I said, as if I had a choice in the matter. I had stopped crying and was just trying to stay calm and focus on one thing at a time. I was pleased to see that 90 Day Fiance, my favorite guilty pleasure TV show, was on the television across the room. I also did not get to enjoy that for long, either.

“You might feel a little warm,” she said, inserting the needle in my arm.

About thirty seconds later, I felt my cheeks flush. “Oh, okay, yes, I feel warm,” I gave a small smile. This wasn’t so bad.

Spoiler alert, reader: it became quite bad.

As it turns out, magnesium is a muscle relaxant, and when used to manage preeclampsia through an IV drip, will totally and completely incapacitate you.

The medical team attached balloons to my legs that would increase and decrease in size in order to keep me from developing blood clots or bed sores. I had needles in both hands and a blood pressure cuff constantly attached to my arm. They catheterized me so that I could urinate without having to leave the bed.

The magnesium quickly entered my nervous system and prevented my eyes from working in concert. Thanks to the previous decade’s worth of eye issues (glasses at 7, contacts at 12, retina detachment at 22, LASIK at 24, cataracts at 25) my eyes see different distances. Because of the muscle relaxant and this distance issue, I wore an eye patch during the day, which I would rotate between my eyes, so that I wouldn’t feel so tired.

This was Monday, and while I didn’t know it then, I would deliver on Wednesday evening and spend until Saturday in the hospital. While Ron, my sister, my mom and my dad rotated in and out of the room to spend time with me, I was unaware of a lot of their comings and goings. My best friend, Caitlin, told me later that we spoke on the phone a few times, but I only recall one of those times.

I spent much of the time sleeping because even watching TV was too uncomfortable. When I wasn’t sleeping, I would talk to my family and check in on Instagram to do a quick Story update. My sister and Ron managed my incoming social media messages when I was incapacitated. “Wow, you have a lot of people checking on you,” Kara said one morning, sitting beside my bed. “Everyone wants to know what’s going on and if you and the baby are okay.”

The magnesium, besides incapacitating my body, also caused me to hallucinate. I would close my eyes and often see bright colors—and, weirdly, clown faces—floating on the inside of my eyelids.

On Tuesday night, now well over 24 hours on Magnesium, my team of doctors decided to break my water and try to induce me. They’d already given me two shots of steroids into my butt cheek to help my son’s lungs catch up in development because this was five weeks prior to his due date. The Pitocin wasn’t doing much except causing me to have contractions, which I could barely feel or register. I wasn’t dilating more than 3cm—a big problem if you’re attempting to have a vaginal birth—and they were focused on trying to get me to dilate further. At around 10 PM, they gave me an epidural.

At some point around 12 AM, a male doctor—the only man I’d seen the entire time, which I was thankful for—came into the room and sat down. I looked at him with my one eye, the other covered by the patch, and heard him sigh. “Every time you have a contraction, the baby’s heart rate drops. So we’re going to take you off the Pitocin.”

I don’t remember if he said anything else. According to my memory, he simply got up and left.

I, meanwhile, descended into a dark hole of terror.

This was it. My baby is going to die and I am going to die. Unlike most of my anxious thoughts, this one felt less like a thought and more like a forgone conclusion. I began to shake uncontrollably, partially out of fear and partially due to the hormones and medication. My sister came to my side and touched my arm.

“That guy was a dick,” she said, “Don’t worry about him, you’re going to be okay.”

I was so scared, I couldn’t even cry. Kara did her damndest to keep me calm, but nothing was working.

I paged the desk and a nurse came in. “I need anxiety medication,” I said.

The nurse came back a few minutes later with Ativan, which I knew wasn’t going to do anything to fight this anxiety. I took it anyway. Forty-five minutes passed and I felt just as terrified as I ever had before. I wasn’t going to get any sleep.

Despite the fact that I’d sent my husband home only a few hours before so that he could spend the night in our bed and get some rest, I needed him back. He was the only person who could make me feel okay now.

“I need Ron,” I whispered to Kara. “Okay,” she said dutifully, getting her phone.

I paged the desk again and the same nurse appeared. “I need some real stuff,” I said firmly. “I need some real anxiety medicine, that Ativan didn’t do anything. Please.”

When Ron arrived at around 3 AM, he reports that both me and my sister were fast asleep. He laid down on the floor with a blanket.

The next day brought much of the same: nurses in and out, doctors in and out, drugs and more drugs. I had eaten, by this point, probably 30 popsicles, which were one of the only things I was allowed to eat.

Why has my body betrayed me in this way, I thought.

The first dilating balloon didn’t work. They tried a second balloon to no avail. They gave me a big exercise ball to put between my legs and attempt to rock back and forth with.

Finally, at around 4 PM, my OBGYN walked in. She was pissed. “Why are we still trying to get her to have a vaginal birth?” she curled her bottom lip, staring intently at the two nurses in my room.

The braver nurse spoke up. “We think she can do it,” she said. “We want to give her an opportunity to try.”

“Do you feel like you know more about this than I do?” my OBGYN asked.

A fight! This is exciting, I thought, something to watch. I’d almost forgotten they were arguing about me.

“No, no,” my nurse said. “We just want to give her a little more time.”

The OB shook her head and looked at her watch. “We’re getting into the danger zone here. This has been going on too long.” She looked at me. “Are you prepared for a C-Section?” she asked in a softer tone.

“Uh, I guess…” I said. Did I really have a choice in the matter? At this point, I just wanted to give birth.

The OB nodded to me and then looked at my nurses. “You’ve got thirty minutes.”

My OB was back in the room in what felt like seconds after she’d left, although I realized thirty minutes had gone by. Nothing had changed.

“Alright, we have the OR prepped and we’re ready to take you back,” my doctor said.

I’d forgotten, until that moment, that there were wheels on my bed. I’d been in that bed since 3 PM on Monday and it was now 4:30 PM on Wednesday. I was moving. I looked up at the lights moving by on the ceiling and heard voices and footsteps. I closed my eyes again.

I appeared, as if by magic, in another room—what I surmised must be the operating room—and on another surface. I vaguely recall being moved to the new surface, now a table. They asked me to hold onto the straps near my left and right hand. I held the straps and someone put a surgical cap on my head. “Your husband is getting his PPE on and will be in soon,” a female voice told me.

Another female voice said, “We’re going to prick you with this to make sure you can’t feel it.” She touched my stomach lightly with the sharp object. “I can feel it! I can feel it!” I yelled.

“Huh,” she sounded perplexed. “She had an epidural?”

“Yes!” I yelled, even though the question was not for me to answer.

I was in a blind panic. “I can move my leg, I can move my leg,” I started to cry. “What do I do?”

“You’re not supposed to move your leg, honey,” a female voice said gently. “Try to stay still.”

“No, no, I can move my leg!” I cried. I began to struggle with the straps and cry.

“We need to put her under,” someone said. “Tell the husband he can’t come in anymore.”

“Honey, we’re going to put you under anesthesia, okay?” the female voice asked. It wasn’t really a question.

“Count down from ten.” I knew about anesthesia: I’d been under now a couple times for my eye surgeries. I always woke up feeling like hell.

Ten, nine, eight…

I’m awake, I thought. I am alive. Where is my baby? Where am I?

This was a different room, wasn’t it? It was quiet. I closed my eyes again.

“Help me, help me,” a woman’s voice cried out quietly, pleading, through the echoing room.

Is that my voice? I thought. No, no, I think that’s someone else. I should comfort her. I should tell her that she’s okay. But I don’t know if she’s okay. I don’t know if I’m okay.

I’ll call out to her.

“Hi, you’re okay!”

I am only 50% sure I replied to the woman. Does it count that I wanted to?

Some time passed: it was perhaps two minutes, maybe it was an hour. It was all the same to me. Was this a new room? Where is my baby? Is he okay?

I heard Ron laughing and talking to someone.

The baby must be okay! He’s laughing. He wouldn’t be laughing if the baby weren’t okay. I felt relieved.

Ron will later tell me that he was speaking to a nurse who was in the recovery area with us. “She may have some memory loss due to the anesthesia,” the nurse explained. “Oh, Rachael is a dementia expert, she knows all about memory, so she’ll be good,” Ron replied.

Apparently, even in my current state, somewhere between wake, sleep, and another world, I nodded, acknowledging my credentials.

They both laughed.

At some point, someone asked, “Would you like to see your baby?”

Ron seemed excited, but I was confused. My baby? Wasn’t he inside of me?

I somehow made it into a wheelchair and was wheeled to the NICU, where they were keeping our son.

We approached the NICU doors and someone pointed to a NICU pod. “Here he is! Would you like to hold him?”

I so wish, now, that I could have felt joy upon seeing my son for the first time.

I did not feel joy. I did not feel much of anything except a feeling like I was floating, watching this all from somewhere else.

They took him out of the NICU pod and put him in my arms. What was he doing out here?

I had known my baby inside of my womb. Now, upon seeing his face, I realized I was looking at a very tiny stranger.

His NICU pod had a sign: Baby Boy Wonderlin. I felt a sense of pride: my son had my last name, if only for this hospital stay.

A photo was taken at some point with all three of us. I looked at the photo later and found I did not remember the moment.

In the days to come, I would look at my phone and see photos on it that I hadn’t taken. It reminded me of waking up after a long night of partying in college, looking through my digital camera and spotting a litany of photos I didn’t recall. Oh, this was the time that so-and-so grabbed my camera. Oh, here’s me drinking a beer I vaguely remember. Whose hat is that?

These photos, instead, were of my son right after he’d been born: still covered in some blood and other human fluids, eyes closed, many gloved hands on him. It was nice that a nurse had taken these photos, but I found myself wondering how they’d gotten ahold of my phone.

I would later realize, in a sudden rush of grief, that I had not seen my son be born. He was not placed on my chest. I was not given that opportunity, and it felt like no one’s fault but my own, somehow.

At some point, they wheeled me back to the room I’d originally come from. They announced that I needed to be on Magnesium for another twenty-four hours because I could still get eclampsia (the thing you want to avoid if you have preeclampsia.) I pleaded with the medical staff: I couldn’t take any more of this bedridden, awful shit they were pushing into my veins.

Nobody listened and I was put right back on the drip.

I have a voice note saved in my phone diary from the night after my son was born. My voice is shaky and slow. I almost don’t recognize it now, listening to it. “Well…he’s outside of my body now,” I say quietly to my phone. “It’s weird because…I feel like he’s still in there.” I talked to my phone for a few minutes in an effort to save my thoughts for posterity, and also because it was too difficult still to see my phone and type.

Finally, the next day came and my Magnesium IV ran out of fluid. It would take a day or two, however, for the effects of all of the drugs to wear off.

The next few days were spent in the hospital, in a different wing than before, and still a different wing than my son. “Can you walk down to visit him?” my mom texted me the day I was moved. “Mom, I can barely get out of bed without assistance,” I texted back.

The C-Section was very painful and was made worse by the cough I’d developed as a result of being put under anesthesia. The minor cough wouldn’t have bothered me, but in combination with major abdominal surgery, any expelling of air—a cough, a sneeze, even a laugh—was painful.

And, honestly, I was afraid to visit my baby without Ron present. I didn’t know what to do. He was so small and looked so fragile in what I called “his NICU House”—the pod that helped him regulate his body temperature.

Every day, Ron would come to the hospital, help me into my wheelchair, and we’d go together to visit our son in his NICU House. We’d take him out, feed him my milk from a small NICU bottle, and drop off the rest of the milk that I’d pumped from my hospital bed. We would take turns holding him. The NICU nurses were incredible and taught us everything we needed to know: how to feed him, bathe him, change his diaper, change his clothing. It sounds silly now, but we were terrified. We were brand new parents and our son was only 4 lbs, 6 oz.

The rest of my days in the hospital were spent watching shows on my iPad, pumping, send the occasional email, eating whatever they brought me, and attempting to get up the courage to take a shower.

I was terrified to see myself naked and terrified to stand alone in a shower. What if I fell? I felt like I could fall at any moment, but I also felt disgusting: I hadn’t bathed since I’d arrived to the hospital and I smelled like blood. Eventually, knowing that friends were coming to visit me the following day, I decided to shower. Or, at least, I’d wash my hair.

Ron took me home from the hospital on Saturday. Our son stayed in the NICU.

No one could give us an exact date for when he’d be coming home. We heard “on your due date” (which was still nearly a month away!) and “when he can keep his temperature up outside of the pod.”

Despite the fact that I couldn’t use my abdominal muscles—try getting out of chair or bed without using your abdomen—and that I had to pump multiple times a day or that I could barely walk or use the stairs, life returned to a strange sort of normal for my husband and I.

The big change to our calendar at that time was that we would visit our son each day around 4 PM, in time to get there for his late afternoon bottle feed and “bath,” which was really just wiping him down. We’d bring my milk in a cooler and drop it off, picking up more bottles for me to fill the next day.

I went back to work, but my team and clients were confused. “Rachael, please take a break,” was a sentence I heard many times over the course of this period. “And do what?” I’d reply. “I’m all out of 90 Day Fiance and I can’t even work out or drive my car yet. I might as well get some work done.”

I should’ve taken a break, but I believe that my brain was insulating me from the shock and anxiety of having a baby in the NICU. If you were to ask me then how I felt about my son being at the NICU, I would’ve said something like, “It’s hard but I know it’s the safest place he can be.”

I realize now that I was very detached from the world around me during this time. In both my diary and my calendar, I refer to my son as “the baby.” Visit baby appears in my calendar for eleven days, from 4 to 6 PM each day.

Finally, on day ten of his NICU stay, we learned we could take him home the following day.

Ron and I had a dinner date at my favorite restaurant and we talked through our setup at the house: we had everything we needed, right where we needed it. We were as ready as we could be.

Subscribe now

There are plenty of “mental health screenings” that happen after you give birth these days.

That is great, and we need to keep doing those.

I will add, however, that all of the little written tests I took completely missed my PTSD.

I knew I had Postpartum Anxiety—that was a given: I’ve had Generalized Anxiety Disorder as long as I can remember. When I was 7, I started having panic attacks. The older I got, the better I became at controlling them, until eventually they only happened once or twice a year if I woke up in the middle of the night. Despite my feelings of control over these panic attacks, I was ill-prepared for what was to come.

We picked up our son from the NICU on a Sunday in the late afternoon and brought him home. He was so small and seemed so fragile, and I remember I was terrified the entire car ride home that something would happen to him. He was still only 5 pounds, and the car seat looked giant in comparison to his tiny body.

Not to mention: we’d grabbed the wrong car seat. In our inexperience as parents, we’d installed the larger car seat. Sigh.

That night, my husband and I woke up together to feed and change him every three hours, just as the NICU had instructed.

I don’t remember much about that night, nor the next day. All I remember is the Tidal Wave.

I did not expect the Tidal Wave. I felt, at least to some degree, like things were under control: my parents had come back into town to help us, so we had a house full of adults to care for a very small baby.

I remember sitting outside with our son in a bassinet. The neighbors came over to visit and meet our new baby. I could feel the beginnings of something inside of me that wasn’t quite right, but I tried to push down whatever was beginning to stir.

We ordered Olive Garden and sat down to eat it in the dining room when it arrived. I picked up a breadstick, looked at it, and put it back down.

What have you done to your life? a voice in my head seethed.

I’d never heard this voice before. This wasn’t just my anxiety anymore—this was something else. Something sinister.

I got up and quietly made my way to the couch and laid down. My body felt like it was paralyzed. I couldn’t move and I began to sob uncontrollably.

You’ve made a terrible mistake, the voice in my head whispered. You can’t do this. You should just kill yourself.

My mom and husband put down their Olive Garden and came over to check on me, previously assuming I was just going to take a nap. “What’s going on?” my mom asked, concerned.

“I don’t know!” I sobbed.

You don’t know what you’re doing, the voice said.

“Everything is okay!” she tried to reassure me. “The baby is sleeping and he’s doing so well, you’re pumping and that’s going great! It will all be okay, I know it’s a little overwhelming right now.”

“I think I made a mistake,” I said between sobs. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”

My previous panic attacks were nothing compared to the monster that appeared after the birth of my son.

You know when you’re standing on the beach, feet in the shallow of the water, and you can feel the sand and water pull away as a wave is forming?

That is what I felt, and when I looked up, I saw it: a massive, terrifying wave growing larger and larger over my head. The wave was pure horror and, when it hit, I would spend between an hour to two hours completely paralyzed and inconsolable.

I began to call it the Tidal Wave or the “hormone attack,” but I realize now it was probably the beginning of my Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, mixed with my pre-existing Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Less hormones, more trauma. Don’t get me wrong: your body is doing some insane things after you give birth, but this was something else. This wasn’t the “Baby Blues.” This was something awful.

The Tidal Wave was deep, deep depression, suicidal thoughts and a feeling of complete despair—but only for an hour or two at a time. It was bizarre and hard to explain to any medical professional or other mothers. I felt crazy and I felt alone. I feel fortunate that I never even once considered hurting my son—only myself.

Once, after I’d had a few of these attacks, my husband and I were sitting in our bed, probably waiting to do a nighttime feed and change. I felt the tide begin to pull at my feet and I turned to him.

“It’s coming,” I said, quietly. “If this keep happening, I need you to take me somewhere, because I want to hurt myself when it’s here.”

A look of terror crossed his face, but he stayed calm. “Okay,” he said, nodding.

The Tidal Wave hit and I laid down. “What do I do?” I cried.

“Do you want to take a hot shower?” he suggested, softly.

You’re going to be a terrible mother. You’re an idiot for thinking you could do this. You’ve ruined your life and ruined your schedule and it’s all your fault. “No, no, no. I can’t get up,” I sobbed.

Just as quickly I’d feel the tide pull away, I would, after an hour or so, begin to feel the tide flow gently back in. Suddenly, as though nothing had happened, I would start to feel better: I could sit up, I could speak, I could listen again, I could laugh, I could plan. I felt, more or less, like myself.

And, between these Tidal Waves, by all accounts, I was fine. I was stressed, of course, but I was incredibly functional—at least as much as any outsider could tell.

A week after I left the hospital, I was due for my checkup with the OBGYN. As she walked in the room, she took a step back and did a double-take when she looked at me. “Wow!” she laughed, “You look a lot better!”

She continued, “You looked like you were being tortured when I saw you last.” She paused. “I guess we were kind of torturing you.”

“The Magnesium was really bad,” I tried to smile.

“Yes, it is a rough drug,” she agreed. “But it’s better than dying.”

There was at least one time that I was sure I was going to die, regardless of the Magnesium. I kept the thought to myself.

“You know, you’re pretty strong,” my doctor offered.

I felt a sense of pride wash over me. This was not a woman who was prone to giving compliments, so I knew she meant it. Maybe I would be okay.

I remember one day, perhaps a week after my appointment, taking a walk to Starbucks, which is nearby in our little town, pushing my son in the stroller. I was wearing my C-Section brace around my middle and moving slowly, but I found that it was important to get out of the house to keep the Tidal Wave at bay.

We ran into a woman I knew. She was kind and had a couple children of her own, although they were in their 20s. She spotted me pushing my son into the coffee shop and beamed. “Oh! He’s beautiful,” she offered, smiling at me. “You must be so in love! You must be just so happy,” she cooed. “Isn’t this such a magical time?”

Time stopped. She knows your secret, my brain hissed. She knows you’re fucking nuts. She can see that you’re miserable and unprepared for motherhood.

“Yes, yes, it’s really great,” I smiled, drawing on my decades of acting experience.

Everybody knows that you don’t know what you’re doing, the voice said. You should just go home and stay there.

My Education and Marketing Director, Natalie, came over during the week to nanny and to help run the business. In theory, this was great: we could work while he napped, which he did often, as a new baby and especially as a preemie.

In reality, I felt like I was drowning.

I realized far too late that I was trying to do too much at one time, but I couldn’t stop. I had never in my life needed to “pull back” on how much I was doing: I was used to running at breakneck speed and juggling a litany of activities. I’d always been the type of person who heard things like, “How do you have time for all this?” I would always smile and shrug, “I’m super Type A and I love getting things done!”

The trouble, of course, was this was still who I was, but who I was also completely at odds with my new life situation.

I remember taking a trip to the pharmacy with my mom and Natalie. Nat pushed the stroller and smiled as my mom snapped a photo. I stood there, smiling, but my mind was far away. In the middle of another panic attack—this time out in public—I tried to keep it together.

Why are you so useless? the voice asked.

If I wasn’t changing a diaper, I was pumping. If I wasn’t pumping, I was cleaning the pump materials. If I wasn’t cleaning the pump materials, I was trying to remember to eat, nap, shower and take slow walks—I wasn’t allowed to exercise yet, and even walking was hard in the early days—or send some emails.

I should’ve taken maternity leave from my business.

I blamed my lack of maternity leave on the fact that I had had an unexpectedly timed birth, but, in truth, I doubt I would’ve been able to fully take leave. I hated not-working and, frankly, I felt like I couldn’t fully step away. Yes, my team had been amazing during the six days I was incapacitated in the hospital, but I knew I had to be at the helm for my business to continue and grow long-term. Friends and family urged me to “do less,” but I found it incredibly challenging to step back.

It would take me ten months before I felt like myself.

From the outside, I appeared very well-adjusted and collected. At exactly two months postpartum, Natalie and I drove down to Washington DC for a big conference we were sponsoring. We brought my son and met my mom and sister at the hotel so my sister could come with us to the event and my mom could look after my son. I took my son everywhere around town in his stroller and, to my mother’s chagrin, out to a number of restaurants in the early evening to meet friends. At five months postpartum, I put on a skin-tight Halloween costume and went to a friend and fellow mom’s Halloween party. I really looked like—both mentally and physically—that I was doing well.

Share The ABCs of B2Bs

Successful entrepreneurship is all about passion and drive, and that is all I’ve ever known. I’m a perfectionist and a planner. I’m a Type A, I-can-do-it-myself woman.

Suddenly, I felt like none of those things made sense anymore. My body wasn’t cooperating with me and it was doing things I hadn’t anticipated. I felt like my brain was missing pieces and I was racked with a kind of anxiety I had never felt before.

The Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder that had been reserved primarily for excessive hand-washing during travel and my usual intrusive thoughts was now in full-ass hyper speed. I was plagued by obsessive thoughts about my son’s safety: what about this, what about that?

I’d purchased a sock to monitor my son’s heart rate and oxygen levels, but my compulsions made it difficult to sleep: I had to check it again. I had to look, again, to make sure everything looked good. What if something was wrong and the monitor didn’t go off?

“Rach, are you doing okay?” my best friend texted one night after I’d spent the previous hour sharing every anxious medical thought about my son with her. (My best friend is a Physician Assistant and she’s married to an ER physician.)

“Probably not,” I texted back, tears streaming down my face. It was probably 12 AM for me, but she was living in California at the time—a convenient time difference for my late-night panicked texts.

At month six, I went to a routine dentist’s appointment where they announced they’d need new pictures of my mouth. “Sure,” I shrugged. I’d had dental pictures done a million times over the course of my life.

The technician called another technician in to the take the photos while she used the tool to pull my lips from my teeth to get a better look.

Suddenly, it hurt. “Ow, ow,” I said, a little too loudly. “Oh, I’m sorry, honey, hang on,” she said, adjusting the tool. The overhead light beamed into my eyes. That looks like the light above me before my C-Section.

Her adjustment was worse. I felt panic set in and I had a flashback to the operating room, my vulnerable body laying on the table, bright lights blinding me. “It hurts!” I practically screamed, pushing her hands out of my mouth and shooting up in the chair. I burst into tears.

I was mortified. Here I was, a 34-year-old woman, crying at the dentist. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” I whispered between sobs. “I had a difficult birth process.”

“That’s okay! I’m sorry, honey! Let me get you a tissue. We don’t need to do these today,” the technicians offered.

This was the first of two times where I had a PTSD flashback at a dental procedure. The second time, I was at my orthodontist during month eight or nine, getting fitted for aligners.

Again, I was mortified, realizing I was surrounded by teenagers getting their braces. Yes, here I was, a grown woman, a mother, sobbing at the orthodontist. Clearly, I needed to deal with my PTSD directly. What I had thought was simply new-mom anxiety was much deeper and much darker than I had expected. I also realized that I had previously believed PTSD was reserved only for veterans or for victims of assault or abuse, not women who had given birth.

Shouldn’t I be happy? I was alive, my baby was healthy—but why wasn’t I okay?

I’ve told many people—especially other moms—my story. There are moments that it is hard to talk about, but I believe that sharing it is good for me and good for women who want to hear it. If a new mom has ever felt grief related to a birth that didn’t go as planned, I want her to know that she is not alone. My birth process did not go as I would have wanted. It’s a part of my story now.